Jiří Petrdlík

Jiří Petrdlík (b. 1977) is appreciated as one of the most respectable conductors of his generation. He studied piano, trombone, and conducting — 1995–2000 at Prague Conservatory, and 2000–2005 at Academy of Performing Arts Prague — with Hynek Farkač, Miroslav Košler, Miriam Němcová, Radomil Eliška, and Tomáš Koutník, and took part in the masterclasses of the New York Philharmonic Principal Conductor Kurt Masur and the BBC Philharmonic Principal Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. Petrdlík also successfully took part in several competitions, including the Donatella Flick Conductor Competition in London. 

Between 2002 and 2009, he was engaged as the Permanent Conductor in the National Theatre Brno and the Music Director and Principal Conductor in the Municipal Theatre Brno. Since 2004 he has been the Permanent Conductor in the Pilsen J. K. Tyl Theatre, where has been appointed as the Artistic Director of the Opera from the 2020 and 2021 season. As a guest, Petrdlík regularly cooperates with many prominent opera theatres in: Warsaw, Cairo, Toulouse, Odessa, Szeged, Messina, Granada, North Texas, and Prague. 

In the field of symphonic music, Petrdlík collaborates with the majority of Czech orchestras — Prague Symphony Orchestra, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Moravian Philharmonic Olomouc, North Bohemian Philharmonic Teplice, and regularly conducts prominent orchestras in Europe, North America, and Asia.

In the year 2010, Petrdlík started his successful and long cooperation with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, where he was appointed as the General Artistic Director and Principal Conductor between 2011 and 2015. From 2015 to 2016, he was the Principal Guest Conductor of the Podkarpacka Philharmonic Orchestra in Rzeszów, Poland and a permanent cooperator of PARMA Recordings. 

Petrdlík regularly appears with renowned artists Dimitry Ashkenazy, Ivo Kahánek, Karel Košárek, Jan Simon, Eva Urbanová, Ivan Kusnjer, and Soňa Červená in prestigious music festivals — Dvořák’s Prague, Smetana’s Litomyšl, Musik der Meister Vienna, and Lehár Festival Bad Ischl. Beside his conductor career, Petrdlík has developed rich activities as a choirmaster, musicologist, publisher, and pedagogue at Charles University Prague with a Ph.D. degree, and Head of Conducting Department at Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory Prague. He is the Chairman of the Jury of Praga Cantat Competition and also a member of juries of many international competitions. He is a member of the Dvořák Society, and also the Chairman of the Fibich Society. Since 2016, Petrdlík has been the General Manager and Artistic Director of the International Festival of Concert Melodrama. 

Petrdlík´s wide repertoire contains compositions of various musical genres, styles, and periods. In the field of discography and recording activities, he often turns his attention to the rarely performed titles, from ancient music to contemporary compositions: Gluck’s Ezio, Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II and Cantata on the Accession of Emperor Leopold II, Foerster’s Glagolitic Mass, Fibich’s Missa brevis, Martinů’s La Revue Cuisine and Field Mass, a selection of Moniuzsko’s most popular operas, Prokofiev’s Eugene Onegin, and Lukáš’s Homage to the Artists.